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Helicopters

January 17, 2013

The U.S. Marine Corp. got its 100th H-1 helicopter in a special Wednesday afternoon delivery ceremony at Bell Helicopter's Amarillo assembly center.

The H-1 helicopter program includes the UH-1Y utility helicopter and the UH-1Z attack helicopter.

Even Bell's president and CEO was at the ceremony saying, "We are deeply proud to be the Marine Corp's partner in these aircraft. They are among the most advanced, capable and affordable attack and utility helicopters serving today."

Onlookers said the affair, indeed, was a memorable one. Best of all, some said, it was short and sweet.

December 31, 2012

Manufacturers vying for a piece of an Army contract for an armed aerial
scout helicopter will have to wait until next year to learn whether the Army is
going to hold a competition to replace Bell Helicopter's Kiowa Warrior.

But at least one prominent aerospace industry analyst thinks the Army isn't going to hold a
competition. Richard Aboulafia, analyst for The Teal Group in Washington D.C.,
told the Star-Telegram that the Army will stick with the Kiowa
because it makes budget sense. And in other publications, he's been quoted as
saying: "The replacement for the Kiowa Warrior is likely to be the Kiowa
Warrior."

At any rate, James Darcy, spokesman for EADS North America, says the Army
has been smart in its strategy to conduct industrywide, voluntary flight tests
before talk of any competition gets serious. Last year, his company and several
others, including Boeing Corp., participated in skyoffs to demonstrate their
aircraft to the Army. The Army is going to use the information it obtained from
the demonstrations to decide whether to hold a competition. It hasn't issued
any request for proposals on the matter.

That's a smart way to check things out, Darcy said.

"The Army turned the tables on the industry," Darcy said.
"They said, 'We're not going to have a competition unless you spend your
money and energy to prove to us that we need a competition.'"

North Texas is a draw for the helicopter industry. EADS North America subsidiary, Eurocopter, has offices in Grand Prairie. Bell Helicopter is headquartered in Fort Worth.

December 06, 2012

ARLINGTON -- Chuck Yeager always said that if it looks right, it flies right.

That was the general feeling of a number of spectators, including some city leaders, who witnessed a demo flight of AgustaWestland's new generation AW-189 eight-ton helicopter.

The sleek-styled aircraft took off shortly around 2 p.m. Thursday afternoon in a "demonstration of agility,'' one AgustaWestland official said.

The Italian-based company opened a 5,000-square-foot office space and a flight test facility at Arlington Municipal Airport earlier this year.

"It's been a good experience for us,'' said Bob LaBelle, an official for AgustaWestland. "We intentionally selected this location because of the weather and the abudance of aerospace talent."

AgustaWestland has built five prototypes of the AW 189, which has been touted as a less costly and more efficient helicopter to maintain and operate. It is primarily a passenger-transport helicopter for offshore transport, utility and safety and rescue efforts.

Thursday at Arlington Municipal, the double-engined machine quickly rose into clear blue Texas skies and performed a number of acrobatics, including wing-overs and sharp turns. Some spectators said they had never witnessed such a large helicopter perform such elaborate maneuvers.

The 16 to 18-passenger aircraft was viewed by dozens of spectators, including some Arlington city council members and the city manager.

It now heads out to Alaska for some cold tests. It is one of five prototypes. The company hopes to have it certified by next year and on the market by 2014.

October 22, 2012

Bell Helicopter says it has begun demonstration flights to show the Army the capabilities it could offer by further upgrading the ageless OH-58 Kiowa Warrior scout helicopter.

Bell spokesman Greg Hubbard said demonstrations began Monday in Fort Worth of what Bell is calling the OH-58 Block II upgrade,a prototype of what the company says is a cost effective way to significantly improve the Kiowa’s capabilities and life span.

“The Army has limited money so why would they go to an all new aircraft with all the added costs of training and logistics that would include,” Hubbard said.

Army aviation experts are conducting extensive meetings with helicopter contractors and, in the case of Bell and EADS North America, flying demonstrations as they evaluate whether the service needs, and can afford, a new armed scout helicopter.

Officials of EADS said last week they had successfully demonstrated the capabilities of their proposed aerial scout aircraft, an armed and upgraded version of the Army’s UH-72A Lakota helicopter. EADS has teamed with Lockheed Martin to produce protytpes.

The Army has already embarked on a $2 billion plan to upgrade the combat capabilities of the Kiowa to an OH-58F version, with new digital flight electronics, sensors and weapons targeting system.

But fresh off a decade of experience in the heat and higher altitudes of Afghanistan and Iraq, the Army would like to have a scout helicopter capable of operating at as high as 6,000 feet altitude at 95 degree heat, well outside the capabilities of the OH-58D.

Bell has proposed the addition of a new engine, rotor blades, tail rotor and drive system that it says will allow the OH-58 to fly, hover and maneuver with weapons and fuel at the higher altitudes. The prototype aircraft was flown and demonstrated its “hot-and-high” capabilities in Colorado last year.

As important as the performance of the aircraft, Hubbard said, is the cost.

“We had an independent company look at the life cycle cost of our helicopter versus the new (EADS) helicopter. The Block II would save $11 billion over 20 years in life cycle costs,” Hubbard said.

Army and Pentagon officials are expected to decide before the end of the year on a plan for either holding a competition for a new scout helicopter, further upgrading the existing fleet or waiting for additional technology developments.

In addition to the entries from Bell and EADS, AVX Aircraft Co. of Fort Worth has also made proposals to the Army for a massively overhauled OH-58 that would boost its speed, payload and high altitude performance.

The Army is conducting studies of a “Future Vertical Lift” family of aircraft that would be developed beginning later in the decade to eventually replace all of the existing helicopter fleet.

Now they must convince the Army — and Congress — to come up with the money.

Recently completed testing of the EADS aircraft, a militarized version of the UH-72 Lakota utility helicopter built by Grand Prairie-based American Eurocopter, showed that it could outperform the Army’s existing Bell Helicopter-built OH-58D models, said David Haines, vice president of Rotorcraft Programs for EADS North America.

Just as importantly, the new war birds could be bought and operated for the same cost or less as upgrading the OH-58 fleet, which dates to the 1970s.

“I can meet their (Army) affordability requirements and I can bring more (capability) to the fight,” Haines said.

Haines said that EADS recently took its prototype helicopter to the Army’s high altitude training and testing range in Alamosa, Colo., where it performed well in the thin mountain air that is not conducive to helicopters.

Both Bell and Fort Worth startup AVX Aircraft Co. are counting on that being the case. "We are confident that it is more cost-effective to upgrade an existing platform than to develop a new platform," said Greg Hubbard, a spokesman for Bell.

AVX has proposed a much more aggressive OH-58D upgrade that the company says can be done for as little as $2 million an aircraft because it uses the existing engines.

“As we’ve said many times, we can upgrade the OH-58 to give it the desired capability at the lowest possible cost,” said AVX spokesman Mike Cox. “No one else can touch us.”

October 17, 2012

Bell Helicopter Textron, Fort Worth, Texas, was awarded contract W58RGZ-12-G-0001-THBD. The award is a firm fixed price, sole source contract with a maximum $8,613,657 for blade assemblies. There are no other locations of performance. Using military service is Navy. There was one solicitation with one response. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2013 Navy Working Capital Funds. The date of performance completion is April 31, 2014. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Aviation, Philadelphia, Pa.

Bell Helicopter Textron, Fort Worth, Texas, was awarded contract W58RGZ-12-G-0001-THBE. The award is a firm fixed price, sole source contract with a maximum $6,563,718 for yoke assemblies. There are no other locations of performance. Using military service is Navy. There was one solicitation with one response. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2013 Navy Working Capital Funds. The date of performance completion is Dec. 31, 2016. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Aviation, Philadelphia, Pa.

Textron said third-quarter net income came to $151 million, or 51 cents per share, compared with $142 million, or 47 cents per share, a year earlier, according to the British news agency Reuters.

Factoring out income from discontinued operations, the profit was 48 cents per share, below analysts' estimates of 51 cents.

The company's Bell division, which includes some other operations besides Bell Helicopter, reported strong gains in revenue and profits although its profit margin was slightly lower.

Revenues for the Bell division gained 20 percent in the quarter to $1.08 billion, while operating profit increased 15 percent to $165 million.

Textron's Cessna division, the world's largest maker of light business jets, faced "very quiet" ordering activity at its Cessna jet unit in July and August and was unable to make money in the quarter on a new contract to provide drones to the U.S. military, Chief Executive Officer Scott Donnelly told investors on a conference call.

"Order activity was very, very light in July and August," Donnelly said. "We did see it coming back in September."

Orders will need to hold near September's rate for the rest of the year for Cessna to meet Textron's full-year sales expectations, he added.

Textron raised its full-year earnings-per-share target on Wednesday, but the revised range of $1.95 to $2.05 was below the analysts' average estimate of $2.10, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. The company's previous forecast ranged from $1.80 to $2.00.

Bell spokesman William Schroeder said the company had just learned of the ruling by a three judge panel of France’s Tribunal de Grande Instance de Paris.

Schroeder said the French court "dismissed Eurocopter's claim for patent infringement on the prototype gear because it was never sold in France." The ruling, like that of the Canadian, court dismissed patent violation claims on the landing gear used in production models of the Bell 429, Schroeder said.

In January, a Canadian court ruled that Bell's initial design for the 429 landing gear was far too similar to the design and features of the "moustache" gear design that Eurocopter produced on some its helicopters. the design violated Canadian patent law, the court ruled.

But the court also ruled that a redesigned landing gear, used on production models of the Bell 429 after Eurocopter raised its complaints, did not encroach on the patent.

A similar patent infringement lawsuit filed by Eurocopter is still pending in U.S. courts.

Eurocopter officials could not be reached for comment. The company's U.S. subsidiary, American Eurocopter, is based in Grand Prairie.

In a press release, Bell Chief Executive John Garrison said:

"This ruling by the French court, once again validating the design of the Bell 429 production skid gear, is a resounding victory for Bell Helicopter. Integrity is woven into the fiber of our company and we work tirelessly to ensure our actions are consistent with this core value.”

Bell said not only dismissed the claims but also ordered Eurocopter to pay the costs of the proceedings, and to pay BHTI and Bell Canada each the sum of €65,000 in costs.

"We intend to continue to vigorously defend the production gear in the pending Eurocopter infringement suit in the U.S. This ruling underscores the Canadian court's decision in a similar ruling in favor of Bell Helicopter and provides strong support for our position," said Garrison.

The Bell 429, a a light twin-engine helicopter, is the company's newest commercial aircraft and the first designed from scratch since the 1970s.

Bell Helicopter Textron Inc., Fort Worth, Texas, is being awarded a $391,426,326 firm-fixed-price modification to definitize a previously awarded advance acquisition undefinitized contract action (N00019-11-C-0023) to provide lot 9 long lead parts and components required for the manufacture of 15 UH-1Y new aircraft; three AH-1Z remanufactured aircraft; and seven AH-1Z new aircraft. Work will be performed in Fort Worth, Texas (60 percent) and Amarillo, Texas (40 percent), and is expected to be completed in July 2015. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md., is the contracting activity.

October 09, 2012

Count Bell Helicopter Chief Executive John Garrison among those sounding the alarm about the likely consequences for the aerospace and defense industry and its employees if Congress doesn't act by early January to block automatic spending cuts from taking place.

Sequestration is the legislative term for the process that wil require the federal government to slash $1 trillion or so -- about $100 billion a year -- from projected spending over the next decade.

If Congress can't come to an agreement on new budget and deficit reduction bills.the automatic $100 billion a year in spending cuts are due to go into effect in January. The cuts by law must be distributed equally between defense and non-defense budget items, except entitlements which are exempt.

"it's a horrible way to set policy," Garrison said."It's going to affect engineering. It's going to affect manufacturing. And it's going to have downstream effects" on the companies that supply Bell and other defense contractors.

Defense contractors and industry groups have ringing alarms bells for months about the impact they say sequestration will have on businesses, jobs and the economy.

The initial impact on Bel would likely be small, Garrison said, because the company has contracts and funding on V-22 aircraft and military helicopters through 2015.

"I'd like to believe the federal government isn't going to break contracts and this will be worked out going forward, Garrison said, but it's still a poor way to run the government.

Bell has been given virtually no guidance on how sequestration would be implemented. "The guidance we've been given is what Secretary Panetta said, that sequestration is not something that's going to happen," Garrison said after his speech.

In the meantime, Bell is working with the hope and as if the political issues will be resolved. "We're continuing to sign contracts" with DoD and the military, Garrison said. "We're continuing to negotiate as Bell-Boeing on the V-22 multi-year contract."